In the most famous suspense serial in
film history (presented in 20 episodes):

the character of playful heiress Pauline Marvin
(Pearl White) always in perilous situations as a 'damsel in distress'
- i.e., tied to the railroad tracks on top of a trestle while a
speeding train is rapidly approaching, abducted, or caught in a
runaway hot-air balloon

Personal Best (1982)

In director/screenwriter Robert Towne's debut film
about two female athletes training for the 1980 Olympics:

the death scene at the finale when idealistic and
disillusioned writer/world traveler Alan Squier (Leslie Howard)
dies in culturally-starved waitress Gabrielle (Gabby) Maple's (Bette
Davis) arms after being shot by ruthless fugitive gangster Duke
Mantee (Humphrey Bogart) in a run-down Arizona desert cafe (she
recites "...this is the end for which we twain are met")

the opening credits and sequence with picture-postcard
views of a New England town

the scene of aspiring writer Allison MacKenzie (Diane
Varsi) - the teenaged, coming-of-age daughter of blonde and prudish
single mother Constance MacKenzie (Oscar-nominated Lana Turner) -
delivering her first kiss (in her 'secret place') to nerdy, shy and
virginal Norman Page (Russ Tamblyn) on a large boulder on the hillside
overlooking town

the scene of tormented, wrong-side-of-the-tracks Selena
(Hope Lange) fighting off the advances of her drunken stepfather
Lucas Cross (Arthur Kennedy) in their tarpaper shack and views of
her straining hands holding onto the bedframe before the rape

the big Labor Day picnic sequence

the scene of Constance's revelation to her shocked
daughter Allison that she was born out of wedlock

the climactic murder courtroom trial of Selena including
Dr. Matthew Swain's (Lloyd Nolan) harsh and unapologetic confession-testimony
as a witness for the defense ("I assisted her (Selena) in a
miscarriage - a miscarriage of Lucas Cross' baby")

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

In director Rupert Julian's gothic costumed horror
film:

the image of the phantom (Lon Chaney) - "the
man of a thousand faces," with a mask covering his acid-scarred
face

his spooky haunting of the Paris Opera House

the scene of the dropping of a giant chandelier on
the opera's audience

the Phantom's sudden Red Death appearance among the
guests at the two-color Technicolor Bal Masque

the shocking scene of his unmasking by abducted opera
singer Christine Dace (Mary Philbin) who sneaks up behind him and
reveals the Phantom's skull-like, disfigured monster face

Philadelphia (1993)

In Hollywood's first major, big-budget feature film
about AIDS - a landmark film by Jonathan Demme:

the characters of likeable, kind, forgiving, and
non-threatening lawyer Andrew Beckett (Best Actor-winning Tom Hanks)
who was afflicted with AIDS and became increasingly emaciated as
the disease progressed, and his homophobic and judgmental ambulance-chasing
lawyer Joe Miller (Denzel Washington)

Miller's initial rejection of Beckett, and then his
decision to represent him in a wrongful termination lawsuit against
his prestigious ex-law firm (senior partner Charles Wheeler (Jason
Robards) yells out: "He brought AIDS into our offices - into
our men's room!") after seeing how he was shunned in the New
York Public Library (nervous librarian (Tracey Walter): "Sir,
wouldn't you be more comfortable in a study room?" "No.
Would it make you more comfortable?")

the scene of dying AIDS patient Andrew's powerfully
transcendental, impassioned interpretation/translation of a Maria
Callas opera aria "La Momma Morta" to Joe while speaking
over the music and pulling his IV with him and ending with the words: "I
am Love! I am Love!"

the scene in the beginning of the courtroom case
when Joe presents an opening speech: ("Forget everything you've
seen on television. There's not going to be any surprise, last minute
witnesses..."), his forceful questioning of one of the law firm
partners when he asks whether he is homosexual: "Are you a homo?
Are you a queer? Are you a faggot? Are you a fruit? Are you gay,
sir?"

and later, when the law firm's defense lawyer Belinda
Conine (Mary Steenburgen) - after resorting to low-blow tactics --
mutters under her breath her distaste for the fraudulent case: "I hate this
case" to her black partner

the hospital scene of Beckett with his long-term male
lover Miguel Alvarez (Antonio Banderas) after first bidding farewell
to family and friends (Andrew's supportive mother Sarah (Joanne Woodward)
whispers: "Goodnight, my angel, my sweet boy"), then alone
when he turns down the lights, tells Miguel: "Miguel, I'm ready," and
then removes his own oxygen mask

the final scene during the reception held in the
Beckett home following the funeral, mourners watched home movies
of Andrew's younger days, to the tune of Neil Young's Philadelphia

the effective use of Bruce Springsteen's tear-jerking
Oscar-winning song Streets of Philadelphia

In director George Cukor's sophisticated romantic
comedy based on Philip Barry's Broadway play - a true classic!:

the opening argument prologue scene (without dialogue)
in which ex-husband C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant) palms heiress
and high society girl Tracy Lord's (Katharine Hepburn) face and
pushes her backwards into the doorway of a grand estate and to
the floor (out of the frame), after she has broken one of his golf
clubs into two pieces

the film's witty dialogue ("The prettiest sight
in this fine pretty world is the privileged class enjoying its privileges")

the exotic image of mute, stubborn, pale-skinned
19th century Scottish woman Ada McGrath (Oscar-winning Holly Hunter)
playing her beloved piano on a New Zealand beach (brought there
as part of her belongings, for an arranged marriage with farmer
Alisdair Stewart (Sam Neill)) as her daughter Fiona (Anna Paquin)
dances and tattooed estate-manager George Baines (Harvey Keitel)
watches

and later, erotic, intimate scenes of piano lessons
(and bargained love-making) in Baines' house after he has bought
her piano

and the climactic scene in which the piano plunges
into the sea and the drowning Ada - her leg ensnared by the piano's
rope, decides against suicide (while envisioning her own death) and
chooses to live (although she possibly expires and her rebirth was
only a fantasy)

the opening scene on a crowded subway when the flirtatious
McCoy steals/fingers (symbolically filmed like a violating rape)
from the contents of the purse of prostitute Candy (Jean Peters)
- inadvertently obtaining stolen US microfilm to be smuggled out
of the country by Communist spies

the sweaty, rough and tumble love relationship that
ultimately develops between the two at his waterfront shack

McCoy's retort to cops when questioned: "Are
you wavin' the flag at me?"

the thrillingly violent subway chase scene

the character of elderly pickpocket and informant
Moe (Oscar-nominated Thelma Ritter) who wants to avoid being buried
in Potter's Field

the remarkable scene in which Candy (wearing a white
robe with a hood) is brutally knocked around her apartment by her
shady boyfriend Joey (Richard Kiley) - breaking lamps, picture frames
and tables before being shot and wounded

Picnic (1955)

In Joshua Logan's widescreen version of William Inge's
Pulitzer Prize-winning play:

the Kansas town's Labor Day picnic sequence

the incredible circling camera work (by James Wong
Howe) during the sensual slow "mating" dance of sexy drifter
Hal Carter (William Holden) and Madge Owens (Kim Novak) to "Moonglow" under
colorful Japanese lanterns on a boat dock landing at night

the final scene of Carter kissing Madge goodbye as
he professed his love ("Listen, baby. You're the only real thing
I ever wanted. Ever! You're mine. I've gotta claim what's mine or
I'll be nothin' as long as I live...You love me, you know it, you
love me, you love me") and then jumped onto a passing freight
train

the amazing helicopter shot of Madge's bus following
Hal's freight train - both going in the same direction at the same
speed

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

In Peter Weir's mystical, intriguing, and bewildering
film about sexual repression:

the image of young schoolgirls in their prim and
constrictive white dresses and stockings - on Valentine's Day in
the year 1900 during the Victorian-Edwardian-era in Australia -
preparing for an ill-fated journey with strict headmistress Mrs.
Appleyard (Rachel Roberts) to Hanging Rock for a picnic

the exploration of four girls (including pretty and
popular blonde Miranda (Anne Lambert)) among the outcroppings and
phallic-shaped forbidden rock crevices as they strip away their layers
of clothing before mysteriously disappearing

the scream of lagging-behind Edith (Christine Schuler)
when she witnesses something at the moment of the three other girls'
disappearance

after the final concluding narration - the slow-motion
return to the picnic scene with Miranda waving goodbye and the freeze-frame
of her turning her head away from the camera - and the film's final
fade-out

The Picture of Dorian Gray
(1945)

In writer-director Albert Lewin's black and white
occult-horror fantasy drama based upon Oscar Wilde's story about
a man's soul and its evil destiny:

the sudden and shocking final view of the hideously-aged
painted portrait of Dorian Gray (Hurd Hatfield) (occasionally shown
in Technicolor) showing the ravages of sin and withered aging (while
he remained young, vain and handsome)

in the last scene when Dorian stabs the heart of his
own image in the picture to release his awful visage, he collapses
to the floor and takes on the hideous and deformed characteristics
of the painting - as the painting reverts back to its original (while
a swinging lamp casts ominous shadows)

Pillow Talk (1959)

In this fluffy 50's 'clean' sex comedy from director
Michael Gordon (the first of three successful Day-Hudson romantic
comedies):

their famed bathtub scene implying that they were
playing footsie with each other - across screens

Pink Flamingos (1972)

In director John Waters' ultimate trashy/cult film
("An Exercise in Poor Taste") and homage to the Manson
family:

the scatological, disgusting gross-out scene of
overweight transvestite Divine/Babs Johnson (Divine or Harris Glenn
Milstead) eating real fresh dog feces in a competition to become
the 'World's Filthiest Person' at the film's conclusion

the other characters in Babs' trailer, including
her delinquent son Crackers (Danny Mills), her traveling companion
Cotton (Mary Vivian Pearce), and her half-dressed, mentally-ill corpulent
mother Edie (Edith Massey) who sits in a playpen and eats hard-boiled
eggs

Babs' stunning "filth politics" speech
to TV reporters: "Blood does more than turn me on, Mr. Vader.
It makes me come. And more than the sight of it, I love the taste
of it. The taste of hot, freshly killed blood...Kill everyone now!
Condone first degree murder! Advocate cannibalism! Eat s--t! Filth
is my politics! Filth is my life!" before she executes Raymond
(David Lochary) and Connie Marble (Mink Stole) in front of the press